Paris Journal 2014 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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It’s
official: we are victims of the Air
France pilots’ strike. Our flight
tomorrow has been cancelled. The email
notification from Air France arrived in my inbox at 4AM, and I saw it at
6AM. Attempts to re-book on the web
site failed; and I spent an hour and a half on hold before reaching an Air
France “travel advisor” on the phone.
I was kind to her; she must have a tough job these days. Thanks to her,
we’re now re-booked for Monday. But
that flight may well be cancelled, too.
We won’t know about that until Sunday, maybe not until the afternoon. One change necessitates other changes (like
the car rental reservation in Miami), and so it goes. My friend
Michael is stuck on the other side of the Atlantic, in Pennsylvania, trying
to get home to Paris. His Air France
return was delayed by a week; he hopes to fly today. I’m crossing my fingers for him. I hope he is
staying with friends, and that this delay isn’t costing him hotel or
apartment rent. Such is life
for those of us who are members of Flying Blue, Air France’s frequent flyer
group. The words “Flying Blue” have
taken on a whole new meaning during this longest strike in Air France
history. My friend John L., an avid
reader of the Wall Street Journal,
sent me an email saying, “I doubt that Air France will survive as a
company.” I sure hope he is wrong! On the bright
side, yesterday was bright and sunny, with temperatures in the oh-so-pleasant
70s F. Tom finished working a bit
earlier than usual, and so we took off for the mountain: Montmartre. We took our
usual approach, exiting the Lamarck-Caulaincourt
metro station on the “back side” of the hill, and walking along the winding
streets to the summit at Sacre Cœur. Along the way, we passed the vineyard, and a park that you can see by appointment or on
certain special opening days. Looking
through the fence into the woods, I saw a wooden rucher (apiary). We found places
where the steep slope had been planted with indigenous wildflowers, which
were wildly blooming. The Paris parks
people are taking biodiversity seriously, and the results in this case are
spectacular. As we walked
alongside Sacre Cœur on
top of the hill, we encountered two buskers: a couple of singers posing as
“twins,” singing raucous old French songs.
One of these women played the accordion. They were fun to watch.
On the way down
the “front side” of the hill, we browsed through the fabric district, and
tried to find large thimbles for Tom to use on his washboard, but all the
large ones were gone. Other
percussionists preceded us, I guess. I’d been saying
all along that this is the kind of thing one must order on the internet, and
that seems to be true enough. But it was fun,
looking at big store after big store with yard goods, and dozens of smaller
stores with the gaudiest costume materials you can imagine. The supplies for belly-dancing outfits were
mind-boggling. When we were
footsore, we entered the number 7 metro at Poissonnière
and exited at the Pont Neuf station, shortening,
but not eliminating, our hike. We
arrived back at the apartment in time to rest and freshen up before going out
again to meet our friends Sherry and Neal, a couple of Sanibelians
staying for a week on the rue du Vieux Columbier. After we found
them at the northwest corner of the Place Saint Sulpice,
we showed them the rug booth at the Azerbaijani festival, and introduced them
to Vidadi Muradov, the
general director of the Azer Ilme
oriental carpet company. It was a
pleasant conversation, and Vidadi took the time to
demonstrate how the rugs are hand-knotted, using the loom that was set up in
the booth, with a Karabagh rug in progress. We had to make
our excuses and leave in time to walk to Le Christine, where I’d made dinner
reservations. We had a very nice
dinner there, and had fun talking about all the things Sherry and Neal can do
in Paris during the next week. They’ve been
here before, and they have a good idea of how they want to spend their time. They
accompanied us to Café Laurent, where we heard another Christian Brenner trio
playing excellent jazz. Tom especially
liked this drummer, Jean Yves Roucan. Bruno Schorp was
playing the bass again; his hands are amazingly large and long – good for
playing such a big string instrument! The group
played a number of Christian’s own compositions. We could see why; this drummer, who is
especially musical, would pick up on the melodies in Christian’s work and
play them out in his drum solos.
Christian’s work has a jubilant quality, and the drum solos
highlighted that. Bravo, Jean Yves Roucan! Sherry and Neal
left after the first set; the air pollution was bothering Sherry. At first she thought there was cigarette
smoking going on in Café Laurent, but I assured here there was not; smoking
is strictly prohibited there. We
looked around; there were no illicit smokers.
The problem is the high levels of particulate matter in the Paris
atmosphere right now. But we stayed
on to the bitter end. Between that
late night and the early morning Air France cancellation and re-booking
efforts, I’m pretty tired today.
However, I think we’ll have to go back to Café Laurent this evening
again; Christian’s group will be a quartet tonight, including a well-known
guitarist named Chester Harlan.
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Saturday, September 27, 2014
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